Keith Preston: US sends more forces to escalate insurgency in Syria
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The success of the Syrian armed forces in fighting the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group has prompted the United States to escalate the militancy in Syria, in an effort to undermine the government of President Bashar al-Assad, says a political commentator.

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said on Saturday that Washington will deploy approximately 200 additional US forces in Syria to support the ongoing campaign to retake the Syriancity of Raqqah from the Daesh terrorist group.

Keith Preston, the chief editor of AttacktheSystem.com, however, told Press TV that this is an effort by Washington to “escalate the insurgency” in Syria.

“This is a standard practice that whenever the United States is looking to escalate an insurgency, typically it starts to send in a relatively small number of advisers or small number of troops,” he said on Saturday.

“The success of Syrian forces fighting Daesh has rapidly advanced in more recent times, largely due to the help that Syrians receive from Russia and it appears however that the more successful the Syrian government has been in reclaiming the territory from Daesh, the more the United State is seeking to bolster rebels operating within Syria,” he added.

Syrian government forces gather on a street in Aleppo on November 28, 2016, after they took control of the area from militants. (Photo by AFP)

Syrian troops, backed by the Russian air power, are rapidly tightening the noose around foreign-backed militants. The government now controls more than 90 percent of the flashpoint city of Aleppo.

“So the United States is probably concerned about the fact that Syria has strengthened its position in the war and now it tries to strengthen Kurdish fighters as a means of undermining the Syrians,” said Preston.

He was referring to a statement by Carter, who said almost 300 US special operations advisers are already in Syria, training and advising members of the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF), who are mainly comprised of Kurdish fighters.

“It looks like that the objective now is to strengthen the insurgencies, not necessarily Daesh, but the other insurgencies as a means of undermining the regime of President Assad,” said Preston.

Damascus has strongly criticized Washington for sending troops to the country. A US-led coalition has been conducting a so-called anti-terror campaign in Syria for more than two years.